UC Davis Human Rights Initiative

Report of Activities 2010-2013

There is now a working consensus that every man and woman, between birth and death, counts, and has a claim to an irreducible core of integrity and dignity. In that consensus, in the world we have and are shaping, the idea of human rights is the essential idea. Louis Henken

Beginning in 2010 the UC Davis Human Rights Initiative (HRI) has provided opportunities for faculty, undergraduates, graduate students and the public to explore the question of Human Rights through a series of seminars, symposia, workshops and lectures. Faculty and graduate students in the HRI have produced innovative, provocative and original research that enlarges the role of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Human Rights scholarship. In keeping with UC Davis commitment to interdisciplinary and university-wide collaboration, faculty from across the campus have developed courses and programs of study which examine critically the history, practice and violation of Human Rights. The HRI has supported high-quality undergraduate research by helping students create and publish the UC Undergraduate Journal of Human Rights: Making the Case. Through the further development of graduate study, collaborative faculty research and public service, the HRI is making a transformative impact on UC Davis and the community it serves.

Contact Information: 902 Sproul Hall, UC Davis, One Shields Avenue , Davis CA 95616 - http://humanrightsinitiative.ucdavis.edu/

The HRI exists to build faculty and graduate student capacity in the research and teaching of Human Rights, as well as to enable undergraduates and graduate students to integrate Human Rights into their own fields of study. Over the past three years, the HRI has grown from a series of faculty conversations that led to the creation of the Interdisciplinary Minor in Human Rights (which graduated its first six minors in 2012) to a diverse project embracing the several elements of the universitys mission. The success of this project is a result of the tremendous level of support it has received from UC Davis Provost, Ralph Hexter, the Academic Senates Committee on Research, which awarded the HRI a $25,000 New Initiatives Grant, the Davis Humanities Institute, whose interim director, Beth Levy, created for the HRI an institutional home, and the Center for Regional Change, and its director, Jonathan London, who provided critical staff assistance in the person of Rachel Goldstein. My colleagues in the Religious Studies Department and our chair, Catherine Chin, have all stood by the initiative from its inception. The intramural support was matched by generous grants from individual donors and

civil society organizations, including Don and Dolores Chakerian and the Davis Sunrise Rotary Club. This support allowed the HRI to promote graduate student and faculty research through a series of conferences, symposia and publications, further develop opportunities for undergraduates, including the publication of the UC Human Rights Journal: Making the Case, something I am especially proud off. The HRI was also able to help the university meet its burden to the community through engagement with critical contemporary Human Rights problems of our day including the Arab Spring. Looking forward: the HRI is the UC Davis component of new UC Humanities Research Institute supported Multi-Campus Research Group on human rights, the Human Rights Collaboration. The MRG will give UC Davis faculty and graduate students a chance to meet and collaborate with colleagues at other UCs. This Fall also saw the first HRI faculty-graduate student seminar on Human Rights and the initial steps towards the creation of a Designated Emphasis in Human Rights Studies. My thanks also extend to Andrea Dooley, who edited this report. Keith David Watenpaugh, Associate Professor and Director

A Letter from the Director

It has been a tremendous professional privilege to work with the faculty, graduate students and undergraduates who form the intellectual community that is the Human Rights Initiative. We study Human Rights because Human Rights are important and are routinely violated. We also study Human Rights because people around the world are claiming those rights through violent revolutions and peaceful movements for change. The study of Human Rights helps us make sense of how our world is being transformed. Human Rights is a new field, but one that allows us as scholars and students to exam enduring and important questions about suffering, the destruction of culture, injustice, and power and powerlessness in ways that transcend established disciplines.
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Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Human Rights and the Humanities Week March 2012

In March of 2012 the Human Rights Initiative, in partnership with the UC Davis Humanities Institute and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change, presented Human Rights and the Humanities Week. HRH week explored the way the question of Human Rights can and should connect with the multifaceted mission of UC Davis. The events of HRH week encompassed undergraduate teaching, graduate professionalization, faculty research and community outreach. Each of the weeks events highlighted opportunities for excellence in all of these aspects of our mission. HRH laid the groundwork for future programmatic and philanthropic development. Activities took place over a four day period, ranging from the inaugural UC Davis Provost Lecture in Human Rights to a graduate student symposium organized and led by a cross departmental team of UC Davis graduate students. The week of Human Rights related activities covered topics such as the impact of images of humanitarian disasters and the use of satellite technology in conflict areas to the interrogation of contested history in the context of genocide. HRH Week at UC Davis attracted participants from Europe, South America and various regions of the United States. It also provided rare opportunities for students and faculty to participate in rigorous conversations about Human Rights and to network with Human Rights scholars and graduate students from all over the world building our student and faculty capacity and expanding our academic reach.

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Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Human Rights and the Humanities Week March 2012

The weeks events began with the Provosts Lecture in Human Rights. UC Davis Provost Ralph Hexter gave a short talk about the relationship between the Humanities and Human Rights, and introduced the inaugural lecturer, Sarah Leah Whitson (pictured above) Executive Director, Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. Whitsons lecture, At Last, an Arab Spring: Black Swans of the Middle East Human Rights Watch Reports from the Ground, attracted a diverse audience of students, faculty and community members and filled to overflowing the lecture hall. The week continued with a presentation by Professor Richard Hiskes, a senior political theorist at the University of Connecticut, in the Mellon-sponsored Environmental Humanities Colloquium, directed by Professors Louis Warren and Julie Sze. Hiskes is the Associate Director of UConns Human Rights Center, amongst the largest and best funded in the nation. He also directs their Human Rights major and minor. Hiskes delivered a paper in the seminar on environmental Human Rights and trans-generational justice. He remained on campus the rest of the week and participated in the other scheduled events including meeting with our academic leadership to discuss the academic, philanthropic and administrative aspects of UConns Human Rights program.
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Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director with Human Rights Watch, delivers the keynote at the Provosts Lecture in Human Rights March 2012

Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Human Rights and the Humanities Week March 2012

In conjunction with the activities of the week the HRI convened the first graduate student symposium on Human Rights. Organized by UC Davis graduate students Andrea C. Dooley (CST) and Katherine Unger (Poli Sci), the allday symposium gathered graduate students and post-docs from UC Davis and beyond under the theme Human Rights in the Aftermath. As part of program, and in cooperation with Cultural Studies Graduate Group, John Erni, Chair of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong (coeditor of Internationalizing Cultural Studies and author of the forthcoming Cultural Studies and Human Rights) delivered the keynote address titled, Reconstructing Human Rights: Cultural Studies and Public Movements. The week concluded with the 2nd Spring Human Rights Symposium: Contested Histories of Human Rights. Organized by Corrine Decker (HST), Keith David Watenpaugh (HRI) and Beth Levy (DHI) the all-day symposium was a high-profile event and attracted scholars in the emerging field of human rights history.

Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

UC Davis Undergraduate Journal of Human Rights

Making the Case

Tremendous student interest in the question of Human Rights has lead to the undergraduate journal project. Supported by a generous publication grant from the Davis Sunrise Rotary Club, the journal produced it first edition in January of 2012, with the second appearing in June of that year. Many of the students who serve as editors, and staff are also Human Rights minors. Rachel Pevsner, editor of the June 2012 edition, says the goal of the journal is to stir up conversations, challenge views and provoke students to think critically and ask questions. The journal seeks to reach the widest audience possible but is focused on reaching the undergrad population of UC Davis. I think it would have unique resonance with them since the journal is produced by their peers, she says. This peer driven model extends to all aspects of the journals production: Undergraduate students are in charge of all phases of production, from issuing a call for submissions, editing contributions, and assembling the content to working with designers and printers to produce the journal itself. The journal, says Keith David Watenpaugh, who acts as faculty advisor, is an example of the creativity, ingenuity, research excellence and professionalism of our students. Submissions for the first edition included a wide range of subjects and mediums such as poetry, photography and essays. This variety reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the journal with submissions coming from Political Science, Anthropology, History and International Relations. Essays about legal interventions in Mexico to protect women from violence and the call for an end to genocide in East Africa, poems that directly address hate crimes on UC campuses and a photographic essay that focuses on the pain, loss and isolation of victims of human rights abuses. These and other submissions to the journal reflect the breadth of issues and rigorous scholarship of the student contributors. The Human Rights Journal provides a valuable opportunity for student contributors to publish work and student editors and staff to gain valuable experience in academic publishing by participating in all phases of journal production. The journal is published annually with the next edition slated for Spring 2013.

Meet the Editor: Rachel Pevsner Rachael, who graduated in English with a creative writing emphasis, is from Fresno, California. In addition to being the former editor of the undergrad Human Rights Journal, Rachel is a playwright and she is also a Human Rights minor. Rachel finds that the information she has gained in the Human Rights courses has impacted much of the creative writing she has done including her play The Blood Law which was produced by a local student organization this year. Early this year she spoke with newsletter editor, Andrea Dooley. Who would you like to reach with the Journal? or who do you see as or audience? Id like it to reach as large of an audience as possible. However, I do think its extremely important for the undergrad population of UCD to read the journal: I think it would have a unique resonance with them since it is written and produced by their peers. How has working on the journal impacted your own understanding of Human Rights and/or encouraged your own activism in the area of Human Rights? Working on the journal has taught me as much about human rights as classes havethe students of UC Davis are very knowledgeable and the various submissions have been farreaching, covering issues of Human Rights from all over the world. Ive learned about genocides in countries Id barely heard of and read stories that made me uncomfortable and read research papers that extensively cover topics that were skimmed over in classes. Being part of the journal has also made me feel active in learning, sharing, and discussing issues of human rights. I am very excited to continue this type of work in the

Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

The Davis Human Rights Initiative hosts an online blog to provide UC faculty, graduate and undergraduates students a forum to write about human rights. The blog called Eleanornamed for Eleanor Roosevelt who chaired the drafting committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights --is a moderated blog that has touched on such topics as the targeting of children during the conflict in Syria, a remembrance of the life of Vaclav Havel, the implications of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq on vulnerable populations and a report from the 3rd Annual Genocide conference in Sacramento. Eleanor provides a space for cross-departmental and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas the opportunities to generate further faculty and student collaborations of topics related to Human Rights.

Follow Eleanor at http://humanrightsinitiative.ucdavis.edu/blog/

Eleanor: The Human Rights Initiative Blog on Human Rights Teaching and Research

Highlights: Some thoughts on the Battle for Aleppo http://humanrightsinitiative.ucdavis.edu/2012/08/07/some-thoughts-on-the-battle-for-aleppo/

Prague-Cairo-Damascus: Remembering Vaclav Havel and the Power of the Powerless http://humanrightsinitiative.ucdavis.edu/2011/12/23/prague-cairo-damascus-%E2%80%93remembering-havel-and-his-%E2%80%9Cpower-of-the-powerless%E2%80%9D/

Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Professors Michael Lazzara and Keith David Watenpaugh have formally proposed a Graduate Designated Emphasis in Human Rights Studies. The DE in Human Rights Studies is built around graduate level courses on the history, theory and criticism of Human Rights, as well as the question of memory, culture and Human Rights. These new areas of teaching and research will add value to and support existing graduate programs in Religion, Cultural Studies, Spanish and other disciplines and fields. This is a unique opportunity for UC Davis, in that Human Rights graduate training at all of the other UCs takes place in law schools or Global Studies programs. Innovating the study of Human Rights from within and across the Humanities and Social Sciences as is the case at the University of Chicago and Columbia University holds tremendous potential for attracting high-quality graduate students and has important implications for faculty development. As the field of Human Rights continues to make inroads into mainstream academic curricula, a DE in Human Rights gives our graduate students a unique advantage in the job market. Moreover the clear intersection of the study of Human Rights and policy will help prepare Human Rights trained graduate students for valued careers in public service, and nongovernmental agencies, providing a wider range of post graduate opportunities. The DE in Human Rights is currently under review and may be available to graduate students as early as 2014-2015.
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UC Davis Designated Emphasis in Human Rights

Fall 2012 Research Seminar in Human Rights and the Humanities

In Fall 2012, the Human Rights Initiative, in partnership with the Davis Humanities institute conducted a Research Seminar in Human Rights and the Humanities. The seminar brought together a diverse group of faculty and graduate students from Art History, Comparative Literature, Drama, History, International Relations, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Sociology, and Spanish. Meeting three times Fall quarter, graduate students lead discussions on topics ranging from The where, who, when and why of Human Rights to a consideration of the global impacts of transnational networks of Human Rights activists. In each case, graduate students worked side by side with faculty to interrogate and critique contemporary academic work in Human Rights. The seminar also brought to campus two of the UC systems leading Human Rights scholars: Ev Meade a historian of Mexico from UC San Diego and Bronwyn Leebaw, a political theorist from UC Riverside. They participated in the seminars discussion of current debates in Human Rights history and help conduct a teaching practicum. Meade and Leebaw are both members of the UC Human Rights Collaboration. As the HRI director, Keith David Watenpaugh has noted: I am extremely pleased with the way this seminar turned out. The people gathered in it represent some of UC Davis most interesting, productive and thoughtful people and the discussions and conversations that took place have been of tremendous benefit to us all. Seminar Participants: Ryan TrippHistory, Tania Lazarazo Spanish, Katherine Unger Political Science, Noelle Joshi-Richard Philosophy, Andrea Dooley Cultural Studies, Keith David Watenpaugh Dir, Human Rights Initiative, Michael Lazzara Spanish, Diane Wolf Sociology, Bella Merlin Theater and Dance, Susan Miller History, Amy Riddle Comparative Literature, Heghnar Watenpaugh Art History and Meghan OKeefe Human Rights

Amy Riddle (COM), Katherine Unger (POL) and Ryan Tripp (HST)

Bella Merlin (Theatre) and Michael Lazzara (SPN)

Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Interdisciplinary Minor in Human Rights

I am a Human Rights Minor

Michael Hoye

The Undergraduate Human Rights Minor was approved in 2011 and is administered by the Religious Studies Department in cooperation with the Department of History, and the Hemispheric and Latin American Studies Programs. This interdisciplinary program provides students with opportunities to explore the practical and intellectual issues of Human Rights in our time. The minor leads students to questions like: what are Human Rights? When and how are Human Rights violated? What are the politics of Human Rights? Students can choose for a variety of core course like History of the Holocaust and International Migrations and elective courses from such diverse departments as Women and Gender Studies, Sociology and Religious Studies. This cross-departmental approach is designed to give students some understanding of the historical, legal, social and cultural complexities of Human Rights, but to also provide a breadth of experience with different disciplinary approaches to the subject. As Human Rights initiative Director and Human Rights Minor advisor Keith David Watenpaugh states, Our goal is that students take away from the minor a greater understanding of the role of Human Rights and the struggle for Human Rights - across a wide spectrum of human activity, both past a present. In addition, Watenpaugh says that the Human Rights minor program will give students the tools to identify Human Rights violations and provides the practical information that will help them address those violations. In its first year, six students completed the minor program; an additional 32 have indicated their intent to declare the minor. The College of Letters and Sciences recently approved the use of a new prefix for listing Human Rights courses in the schedule of classes HMR. Working with the faculty involved with the minor, a series of new courses, including topics and seminars are being proposed and will be available by the 2013-2014 school year. For more information: http://humanrightsminor.ucdavis.edu/

Michael is from Alameda California and is a Junior. He signed up for a Human Rights course in the Spring of 2011 and found it to be very interesting. After completing the course he decided to add a Human Rights Minor to his degree. How did participating in the HR Minor influence other work you were doing in school? Since participating in this minor, I have gotten more involved research, and presented research on the International Criminal Court at this past years Undergraduate Research Conference. I have also followed more closely the work of Human Rights Watch and other such NGOs. What is the most significant thing you feel you learned from participating in the Human Rights Minor? Participating in the Human Rights Minor has opened me up to an emerging field of international relations, and has helped me to critically examine the actions states take, on both the international and domestic level, in their treatment of individuals. How did participating in the Human Rights Minor influence your further plans? Since participating in the minor, I have more and more considered pursuing a job in a Human Rights based NGO. What would you say to those students considering completing a human Rights Minor? I would recommend this minor to anyone who is interested in history, and would like to study the role that States, Corporations, NGOs and other bodies play in affecting, either positively or negatively, human rights.

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Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

University of California Multi-Campus Research Group The Human Rights Collaboration

In Spring 2012 the UC Davis HRI, in collaboration with the UC San Diego Human Rights Program and the UC Santa Barbara Mellichamp Professors of Global Studies, received a major grant from the UC Humanities Research Institute to form a multicampus research group addressing Human Rights and Humanitarianism. The MCRG forms the basis of the UC Human Rights Collaboration, and seeks to take Human Right research to the next level by building an interdisciplinary network that includes graduate students and faculty from UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, UC Merced and UC Irvine. This MCRG will put UC Davis at the forefront of a dynamic intellectual collaboration, driving faculty and students to produce research that will have a far-reaching impact on the field and society at-large. The first meeting of the UC Human Rights Collaboration occurred in Fall 2012 at UCSD. It was hosted by project co-directors, Gershon Shafir, Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Area Studies, UCSD, Alison Brysk, Global & International Studies Program, UCSB and Keith David Watenpaugh, UC Davis HRI. Faculty and graduate students gave preliminary presentations of their research, identified areas of joint study and planned future meetings. Describing her experience in the first workshop, Professor Diane Wolf (SOC) noted It was very exciting to participate in a workshop that integrated graduate students and faculty from at least four UC campuses and set the framework for an interdisciplinary group that will continue working together for two to three years. Connections were made, ideas were sparked and a collaborative tone underscored our interactions and plans.

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Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012

Human Rights Students at the Undergraduate Research Conference May 2012

Several Human Rights Minors and students presented their research at the annual UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference: Gabrielle Baker International Relations Darfur Genocide: Economic Expansion vs. Regional Stability and Human Rights Phoebe Bierly International Relations Genocide Denial and Australias Stolen Generations Geneva Brooks International Relations Barriers to Resistance in the Case of Genocide Michael D. Hoye Political Science: Public Service The International Criminal Court and the Promotion of International Peace and Justice Hannah Tigerschiold International Student from Leeds University, UK It Is Better to Light a Candle Than to Curse the Darkness: How Has Amnesty International Transformed Grassroots Human Rights Advocacy? Ashley R. Smith History

Research articles based on papers delivered at the 2010 Spring Human Rights Symposium, will appear in a special section of the Journal of Human Rights (Fall 2013) on the Human Rights of children, guest edited by Keith David Watenpaugh. Are there any children for sale?: Genocide and the Forced Transfer of Armenian Children (19151922) Keith David Watenpaugh Child Withholding as Child Transfer: Hidden Jewish Children and the State in Postwar Netherlands Diane L. Wolf We are All Rwandans: Repatriation, National Identity and the Plight of Rwandas Transferred Children Andrea Dooley Kidnapped Memories: Argentinas Stolen Children Tell Their Stories

Left to right: Gabrielle Baker, Hannah Tigerschiold, Phoebe Bierly, Geneva Brooks, Ashley Smith, and Michael Hoye

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Human Rights Initiative Report of Activities 2010-2012